1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephone answering machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional telephone answering machine which sends a response message responding to any caller in a constant method is widely known.
In addition, there is known a telephone answering machine which calculates a transmission period per unit call charge on the basis of an area code.
When a message is to be recorded from an external telephone machine such as a public telephone, in a telephone answering machine of the above-mentioned type, in general a response message is played before recording is accepted. However, when a caller does not have enough money to have a transmission period for recording the caller's message, the call is cut in the middle of the response message because of the insufficient depositing before the message is recorded.
Further, since the same message is played to any caller, when the caller records a message from a remote location, a call charge is wasteful.
A telephone machine disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 6-6442 (1994), for example, switches response messages depending on a caller. However, since the telephone machine does not switch the response messages upon consideration of a call charge, the caller is met by the same inconvenience as that described above.
Further, having received a DTMF signal from an external telephone machine, a conventional telephone answering machine of this type accepts recording of a caller's message or reproduction of a caller's message, or judges whether to execute various operations upon extracting and discriminating a caller's ID signal based on call incoming information.
However, a conventional telephone answering machine is structured to always provide constant answering operations, such as reproduction, to any caller whenever there is a remote control operation from outside. Hence, when a special operation is desired (i.e., an operation which matches with a caller's will), it is necessary to enter a secret identification number to specify a caller, which is inconvenient.
To reproduce a recorded message or otherwise operate the telephone answering machine by means of remote controlling, in particular, in addition to entry of a secret identification number, it is necessary to enter an operation command or the like, which is complex. In addition, when a caller operates the telephone answering machine from a remote location, not only the operation takes long time so that a call charge is wasteful, but also since a responding operation is provided always at a constant speed regardless of whether the caller is remotely controlling from a place far away or a place in the neighborhood, if the caller is operating from far away, the caller is charged an expensive rate for the call.
A telephone machine disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 4-87446 (1992), for example, allows messages from a plurality of telephone lines to be recorded separately on the respective telephone lines, and reproduces separately on the respective telephone lines, to thereby reduce charges for calls and secure privacy. However, the telephone machine nevertheless demands complex operations as those described above for recording, reproducing, etc.